LectureHop: Trilling Fucking Matters, Guys
Lionel Trilling, CC '25
Last night there were lots of plastic chairs in Lerner 505, and microphones, a table, a camera, and, of course, “light refreshments.” That can only mean one thing—a lecture! Moderated by Samuel Schube, CC ’12, Senior Editor of The Current, the talk featured Adam Kirsch, TNR bro and author of Why Trilling Matters, and Mark Lilla, beloved Columbia professor. Steele Sternberg showed up.
Last night’s discussion provided an interesting look at a man whom, frankly, probably very few people outside of academia know anything about. For those of us who don’t know (myself among them until I decided to read up on Trilling to prepare), Lionel Trilling was the preeminent literary scholar and critic in the United States during the 1940’s and ’50’s, the first tenured Jewish professor in Columbia’s English department, and a major player in developing the Core Curriculum (standardized LitHum final?!? Thanks a lot Trilling!). Professor Mark Lilla and Adam Kirsch, moderated by the ever classy and thoughtful Sam Schube, weighed in on Kirsch’s new book, Why Trilling Matters, which explains how Trilling used the medium of literature to critique liberalism from within and speculated about Trilling’s legacy today.
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Tags: adam kirsch, going to lectures outside of class is kinda fun, intellectual history, lecturehop, lionel trilling, mark lilla, the current
8 December 2011 @ 9:00 PM · 11 comments
Mark Lilla debates whether conservative ideas are 
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